Wednesday was a light day, with only one solitary roller coaster planned (and a kiddie cred at that). Despite the lack of park substance, it turned out to be one of the more interesting days of the trip, since Bavaria offers pleasant local scenery. And with this being a mostly unknown park, I had zero expectations going in.

Märchenwald im Isartal is a small fairytale forest in the town of Wolfratshausen, just to the south of Munich. It’s reachable via a bus or twenty minute walk from Wolfratshausen S-Bahn station.

First things first, here’s the ticket I received.

Christ

This picture was actually taken as I left - this length queue is groß

It’s another place like Efteling and Familypark full of fairytale diaramas, only their quality is all over the shop. On the one hand you have cool sculptures like this magpie.

Joey approved

Forests usually make for pleasant areas, and the solitary kiddie cred was no exception: it was as aesthetic as it was uneventful.

Oachkatzl

Though unfortunately they’d been taking advice from Drayton Manor on guest noise.

D’aww, they think they can just tell kids not to scream

Unfortunately, since the fairytale scenes were all behind glass and it was a bright sunny day, you can enjoy horrible glare on all my pictures.

I think this is supposed to be little red riding hood

Even in real life, the dead wolf is hilarious

This is far more serviceable as a selfie than of the actual scene - also piercing fox eyes

Obligatory Town Musicians of Bremen

There was one of a larger scene of a woodland, with buttons triggering audio descriptions of all the animals and their calls, which was fun, but I decided to take a picture of the gore.

Blood! BLOOD!

The place had its obligatory train ride, which is always worth a go.

And you thought you were safe from pictures of trains

After it completes the standard parade around the park, the train dives into a tunnel with some arabian scenes.

Though there isn’t much here, I’d recommend a quick dip in. It has its occasional charms but it’s clearly operating on a budget. More excitingly, I discovered that Wolfratshausen is a pictureque place in its own right, and worth coming to, even without the park. It sits in the Isar Valley (Isartal), and the hills to the west of the town boast a few picturesque walking routes.

The forest group put up a trail with activities for children. For anybody who’s been to Greenwood Park, they have one of those weird “learn the forest by walking on random crap” areas.

No offence to the forest people of Wolfratshausen, but I didn’t fancy it

At the top of the hill was a wooden hut, with a laminated storybook for parents to read to their kids. It’s a really cute idea.

A couple of chapels adorned the hillside. A little walk further, I found a trail of small huts, each containing a religious scene from the crucifixion, leading up the hill from a chapel to a giant crucifix.

I was gonna put some pictures of the actual scenes here, but the glare makes them unusable

More walking and looking at things.

The town itself has some of the usual charm of other German traditional towns. Worth a walk through, but I think there are better places to see traditional architecture.

It’s got a nice church though, because everywhere in Germany has a nice church

So, in conclusion, Märchenwald im Isartal is probably worth a visit if you like what I’ve just described, but definitely worth a visit if you want to pair it with a little local sightseeing.

Back to Munich for some last minute tourism bollocks. There’s a pleasant area to walk along the Isar, pleasantly framing Sankt Maximillion in the background.

Stuck for any focus on what to do, I cracked open Wikitravel for some typical tourist traps and headed over to Marienplatz

Even this photo doesn’t get across how BRIGHT ORANGE this station is

Glockenspiel

Old town hall

People on Segways - not in the guidebook, I just still find them amusing

And with that, my stint in Munich came to an end. It’s somewhere I could come back to (and missing out Bayern Park means I probably will), if only to discover some more of the tourist areas and scenery to the south of the city. Overall, there are better places on my trip I’d want to rush back to.

I finished the day back at Munich Central station to get another sleeper train, this time to Padua. This one was significantly less eventful than Cologne to Vienna. I found a group of British and Italian guys off to northern Italy and passed some time exchanging stories and drinking what version of cider I could find in the local supermarket (cherry and lemon flavoured).

The train rolled into Padua at the stupidly early time of 5.30am, from which I lethargically stepped off, trying to compose myself ready for a fun-filled day at Mirabilandia.

Has anyone else got off a train in Italy at 5.30 in the morning?